Reviews (6)

American Dreams Is Fabulous
I just found out about the new American Dreams Season One DVD that will be released in September. Thank God that my birthday is in August so I can order it! I started watching American Dreams in September of 2003 and fell head over heals in love with it! Even though I did not grow up in that generation, my goodness, I can certainly relate to their family's way! Watching the show is one of the highlights of my week. I already know that this DVD will be awesome, and I haven't even seen it yet. I definately suggest everyone get the DVD. I sure will.

What a great family show!!
I have watched every minute of American Dreams since it began and LOVE it!! I'm a Baby Boomer who lived through the tumultuous 1960's and this show portrays the unrest very accurately. It's a great family show and I applaud NBC for renewing it!!

One of the Best!!!
This is one of the best shows on today. It's great for the whole family. I'd love to know what the extras on this DVD will be and I can't wait for it to come out.

Great Show!
From the first promo I saw for "American Dreams" in the summer of 2002, I knew I would love this show and I was right!

This is such a great show for the entire family. It surprises me that it doesn't do better in the ratings than it does.

I was born in the late 60's, so I can kind of relate to how the Pryor's family life plays out ... having only one television set (and only having 3 channels to choose from), one telephone, buying and listening to 45's (for those younger ones of you out there, these are the single records) on a tabletop record player, penny candy that actually cost a penny, Coca-Cola in glass bottles, getting into movies for 50 cents, having a sit down dinner with your family most every night (exceptions were Friday & Saturday nights) of the week ... especially Sunday and so many other things. I love this show, because it reminds me so much of being a child in the late 60's in early 70's.

If you haven't ever watched "American Dreams", I suggest you buy the DVD for Season 1, catch up on Season 2 by reading episode synopsises at nbc.com and start watching Season 3 at 8 p.m. on Sunday night starting September 26th!

American Dreams is awesome
I love this show so much. Even though i wasn't born in this generation, each week, i tune in. The music of American Bandstand is amazing. The special guest stars were awesome. I love how the Pryor family always has something going on. I can't wait to watch the 3rd season. Meg pryor and Roxanne are really funny and cool, while Patti is a brat. Will is adorable, and JJ Pryor has issues with Beth. JJ is also very cute! anyways I would recomend this dvd to anyone. ... Read more

Reviews (44)

Entertaining Yet Uneven
I've watched the miniseries on VH1 and I truly love it. I think it's a great history lesson and entertaining at that. I wasn't there, so I can't tell you how accurate it is. However, I found Michael to be a bit too modern. For most of the movie, it looked like he had wandered onto the set from Friends. Everytime he was on the screen, all I could think about was how he looked like he was in the wrong decade. Some of the other scenes, like the Woodstock scene, seemed trite and overdone. But overall, I enjoyed the story, the characters and of course, the music!

The '60s: Great Movie from Beginning to End!!
I absolutely LOVE this movie!! I've always been fascinated
with the "decade that changed America forever", even though
I wasn't born until 1973. The film has an excellent cast,
and I especially liked Josh Hamilton's performance as
Michael Herlihy...intelligent, sensitive, very socially
conscious...and VERY cute!! I also watched with interest
the relationship between Katie Herlihy and her father.
Having grown up in a strict Catholic family myself, I
could relate to the moral issues and the conflict they
struggled with. (Although I think it's BEYOND RIDICULOUS
that Katie got in trouble at the homecoming dance for
dancing the Twist, labeled "lewd and inappropriate" by
her father & Sister Elizabeth.) Oh, how the times have
changed!! I have watched this movie probably a dozen times,
and probably will watch it a dozen more...I never get
tired of it. If you are interested in the music,
sociology and/or politics of the 1960s, you need to
watch this film. I'm glad I did!

Review of "The '60s"
I enjoyed this DVD, although the acting was a bit cheezy and we didn't see anyone too famous (well, except Dylan, Mario Savio and the rest...) however it was quite enjoyable.

For anyone born a bit too late (like myself) then I recommend watching it.

UHG!
This thing failed to accomplish in many hours what "The Wonder Years" routinely pulled off in thirty minutes. That's it. There's no more to say.

the best movie ever
i'm also a french girl who could watch this movie a few years ago and i really think it's a quite good one.
it's the first time a movie shows as well some historical events.
i advice everybody to learn about the sixties by this movie.only 3 hours to show most important events of that period.
a good way of learning history for students who have problems to remember some dates ot things like that and maybe watch some real pictures of that time!!! ... Read more

Reviews (94)

HERE ON EARTH
I CAN'T NOT EXPLAIN THE TRUTH OF THIS MOVIE, IT WAS SO OVERWELMING. THIS MOVIE EXPLAINS HOW INPORTANT LOVE REALLY IS TO SOME PEOPLE. CHRIS KLEIN (KELLEY) PLAYED AN EXCELLENT ROLE. HE PLAYED A RICH KID WITH ALL THE LOOKS, MONEY, AND POPULARITY. SOME PEOPLE ALWAYS THINK THAT RICH PEOPLE HAVE ALL THE BREAKS, BUT HE SHOWS EVERYONE INCLUDING LEELEE SOBIESKI (SAMANTHA), THE GIRL FROM THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF TRACKS, THAT EVERYONE HAS THE SAME PROBLEMS. WHEN HE WAS YOUNGER HIS MOTHER KILLED HERSELF. HE REALLY LOVED HIS MOTHER, JUST AS HE LOVES SAMANTHA. WHEN HE FOUND OUT THAT SHE WAS DYING OF OSTEOSARCOMA HE COULDN'T HANDLE THE THOUGHT OF LOSING ANOTHER LOVED ONE. SO WHEN THEY FINSHED REBUILDING THE RESTRAUNT THAT HE AND JOSH HARTNETT (JASPER) HAD ACCIDENTLY BLOWN-UP DURNING AN AUTOMOBILE RACE HE MOVED BACK TO BOSTON. AFTER BEING HOME FOR AWHILE HE REALIZED THAT HE DID NEED HER AS MUCH AS SHE NEEDED HIM. THE DAY OF THE RE-GRAND OPENING HE CAME BACK TO BE WITH HER UNTIL THE LAST OF HER DAYS ON EARTH HAD ARRIVED.

A Definate "Watch Again, & Again ,& Again" Movie!
This movie keeps me engaged from beginning to end. If you love watching young people being surprisingly mature and wise beyond their years (LeeLee's character), yet recklessly in love at times (Hartnett & Klein's characters), you'll like this movie. It's the story of two teen boys putting back and making right what they have ruined, and a teen girl finding out that her longtime bestfriend/boyfriend (one of the boys} isn't necessarally her "true" love....Can you guess what role the other boy plays?... The Robert Frost poem used as the backdrop of the film lends a special meaning. Music tops it off perfectly. It is truely a "tear yerker" at the end. LOVED THIS MOVIE SO MUCH THAT I EVEN BOUGHT THE SOUNDTRACK...WHICH IS TERRIFIC AS WELL. It brings back all the great scenes of the movie!

Almost worse than Charlie's Angels
I watched this on cable because I was a big Leelee fan. Big mistake. What a horrible film. You don't care one bit for any of the characters in the movie. Chris Klein plays a guy who is a complete jerk in the film, and steals away Josh Hartnett's longtime girlfriend. If the writer knew what they were doing, this film would have followed the proven formula, and made Hartnett an ass, and Leelee as the girlfriend trapped in a bad relationship, from which she's saved by Klein. But Hartnett is a really cool guy, who shows a lot of emotion and love for Leelee.

You then hate leelee, because she cheats on Hartnett with Klein, who is a jerk to everyone in the town that's trying to help him and really stuck up.

It's also really campy, and the characters do everything but run around the kitchen dancing and lip synching, and using hairbrushes and spoons and fake microphones (although they come very close).

What a horrible horrible movie. You don't even care what happens in the end because the director never lets you care about the characters.

Wonderful!!
I am not a young person but I just saw this movie on TV and it was wonderful!!!! Would buy the video in a minute...it's was great.

wildly predictable and uninspiring teen fluff
If beautiful people and horrible writing move you, by all means purchase this movie now and cry like there's no tomorrow. This is an instant classic from the profitable teen cheese factory and delivers like a charm to those who LOVE teen weepies. (For us others, we'll just suffer in silence, or, as I did, laugh really hard.) The requisite ingredients - love triangle, terminal disease, poor boy/rich boy - push the plot along in the most predictable way imaginable. Sam (Lelee Sobieski) and Jasper (Josh Hartnett) are happy in love, a superstar couple in their small town until Kelley (Chris Klein), the wealthy, out-of-town snot, comes crashing into the diner owned by Sam's parents. As a punishment, he must rebuild the diner but with the help of our buddy Jasper, who also had a hand in the crash. Before long, Sam eyes that hunky Kelley because, hey, who wouldn't fall for a mysterious rich kid? While the two boys wage their testosterone war, Sam discovers she has cancer. Uh-oh!

This movie is a big disappointment because it fails to capitalize on a relatively talented cast and a pseudo-inspiring story. Rather than developing characters instead of caricatures, the filmmakers opted for the easy, fast cash route. As a result, the dialogue seems to be spun from a 13 year old's soap opera fantasy, befitting of the target audience I suppose. Nothing innovative or inspiring comes about, leaving the audience with zero originality to warm to; this total lack of emotional investment keeps the movie distant and empty. You could say it offers ever-important life lessons to the female jr. high crowd. They undoubtedly appreciate the fine merits of this film that those in the general population seem to have missed ... Read more

Reviews (54)

Waiting for a Complete Release
My-So Called Life is a captivating bit of teenage nostalgia. It wears well after repeated viewings and DVD is a great format for compulsive watching of favorite episodes. I recorded the series originally on VHS and am ready to get a longer-lasting set on DVD. But, I'm NOT too enthusiastic about getting three episodes at a time. There were only 19 episodes, so could the folks at BMG just release it as one set, please! As soon as the complete set is released, I'll pick it up.

BEST TV SHOW EVER
I really love this show, and I wish that it would have stayed on much longer. Claire Danes was brilliant in every episode, showing promise as an actress that she has yet to deliver on elsewhere. A.J. Langer was memorable, as was everybody else. Each and every episode stands on its own as a 45 minute movie, particularly the first few which set the tone so well. Not until "Freaks and Geeks" did any other show understand what it was like to be young and get it so perfecftly right in their depiction (though "Freaks and Geeks" didn't do nearly as well as "My So Called Life"). The shows are entertaining, comical, heart-string-tugging, and sometimes profound in their implications.There have been few shows on television that even aspired to the this level, much less reached it. "My So Called Life" is historic and unmatched.

I must admit that much of my motivation in recommending this DVD so highly is purely personal. I bought my copy long ago, just after it came out, and I've been anxiously awaiting further DVD's in the series. To this point I've been disappointed, but I think that if enough people buy this DVD, then perhaps the company will figure out what a hot property they have and release more episodes. Please don't wait for te release of a full boxed set, because if you do there probably won't be one. Follow your heart and buy this. You know you want it. Come on.

I love this show!!!! (by Ashley)
I watch this show on The-N (they play re-runs at 11p.m. Monday
through Thursday , and on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 8:30,
10:30 and 12:30 at night), and at first when I saw the commercials for it I thought it would be a stupid drama series.
Boy, was I wrong! The first episode I saw was "Dancing in the Dark", and the minute I started watching, I was hooked!!!!!!

I love the entire cast of that show ---especially Rayanne (A.J. Langer), and I was dissapointed when I found that they cancelled
the show in 1995. I was only 2 1/2 when they started airing the
show, and I really wish I was the age I am now so I could see
the show when it first aired. I was acting a little retarded when I
thought the show was gonna be stupid when I saw the commercials for it on The-N... I didn't even watch it or anything (yet!:))!!!

I can't believe it was cancelled. I mean, to me and all the fans of this show, My So-Called Life is like a drug (a good kind;))
because you get hooked or addicted----whatever you want to call it!!! It has its good moments, its bad moments, its sad and dramatic moments, its moving ones, its funny ones....IT'S DRAMA!!! This is my #2 favorite drama series (#1 is Degrassi). I
don't think there is any possible way it could get better!!!!!
Buy as many videos or DVDs as you can---I HIGHLY recommend it!!!
If you don't usually watch this show, catch it on The-N!!! I truly guaruntee you will be hooked!!!!!!!
Hope this helps!!!!! Ashley ;)

One of it's Kind
This is one of those rare genius', smart TV Shows out there. I just recently discovered 'My So-Called Life' last year while flicking through cable and saw A.J Langer as Rayanne, who is one of my all time favourite actors. I then saw Clare Danes come onto the screen (who I'v always liked), and then I saw Jared Leto, while the time I was thinking ''What is this show'', I couldn't help but notice and be impressed by the humour of it and the true honesty of it. Watching Clare Danes as Angela Chase and her questioning of things and the humour of Rayanne, I really felt that I had stumbled onto something special and unique. Now I'm really femiliar with the show and a definite fan, I have yet to buy this on DVD but I can't wait to be the proud owner of this fine, witty, wonderful show.

Don't own this, but the complete set
The complete set is available on DVD through this site as well as others. So stop complaining.

Good show. DO NOT order through Another Universe, it is not worth the hassle. It is no longer exclusive to them, so you have a choice. Buy it now. It's up to you. Just don't buy from AU. You have been warned.

K ... Read more

Reviews (94)

HERE ON EARTH
I CAN'T NOT EXPLAIN THE TRUTH OF THIS MOVIE, IT WAS SO OVERWELMING. THIS MOVIE EXPLAINS HOW INPORTANT LOVE REALLY IS TO SOME PEOPLE. CHRIS KLEIN (KELLEY) PLAYED AN EXCELLENT ROLE. HE PLAYED A RICH KID WITH ALL THE LOOKS, MONEY, AND POPULARITY. SOME PEOPLE ALWAYS THINK THAT RICH PEOPLE HAVE ALL THE BREAKS, BUT HE SHOWS EVERYONE INCLUDING LEELEE SOBIESKI (SAMANTHA), THE GIRL FROM THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF TRACKS, THAT EVERYONE HAS THE SAME PROBLEMS. WHEN HE WAS YOUNGER HIS MOTHER KILLED HERSELF. HE REALLY LOVED HIS MOTHER, JUST AS HE LOVES SAMANTHA. WHEN HE FOUND OUT THAT SHE WAS DYING OF OSTEOSARCOMA HE COULDN'T HANDLE THE THOUGHT OF LOSING ANOTHER LOVED ONE. SO WHEN THEY FINSHED REBUILDING THE RESTRAUNT THAT HE AND JOSH HARTNETT (JASPER) HAD ACCIDENTLY BLOWN-UP DURNING AN AUTOMOBILE RACE HE MOVED BACK TO BOSTON. AFTER BEING HOME FOR AWHILE HE REALIZED THAT HE DID NEED HER AS MUCH AS SHE NEEDED HIM. THE DAY OF THE RE-GRAND OPENING HE CAME BACK TO BE WITH HER UNTIL THE LAST OF HER DAYS ON EARTH HAD ARRIVED.

A Definate "Watch Again, & Again ,& Again" Movie!
This movie keeps me engaged from beginning to end. If you love watching young people being surprisingly mature and wise beyond their years (LeeLee's character), yet recklessly in love at times (Hartnett & Klein's characters), you'll like this movie. It's the story of two teen boys putting back and making right what they have ruined, and a teen girl finding out that her longtime bestfriend/boyfriend (one of the boys} isn't necessarally her "true" love....Can you guess what role the other boy plays?... The Robert Frost poem used as the backdrop of the film lends a special meaning. Music tops it off perfectly. It is truely a "tear yerker" at the end. LOVED THIS MOVIE SO MUCH THAT I EVEN BOUGHT THE SOUNDTRACK...WHICH IS TERRIFIC AS WELL. It brings back all the great scenes of the movie!

Almost worse than Charlie's Angels
I watched this on cable because I was a big Leelee fan. Big mistake. What a horrible film. You don't care one bit for any of the characters in the movie. Chris Klein plays a guy who is a complete jerk in the film, and steals away Josh Hartnett's longtime girlfriend. If the writer knew what they were doing, this film would have followed the proven formula, and made Hartnett an ass, and Leelee as the girlfriend trapped in a bad relationship, from which she's saved by Klein. But Hartnett is a really cool guy, who shows a lot of emotion and love for Leelee.

You then hate leelee, because she cheats on Hartnett with Klein, who is a jerk to everyone in the town that's trying to help him and really stuck up.

It's also really campy, and the characters do everything but run around the kitchen dancing and lip synching, and using hairbrushes and spoons and fake microphones (although they come very close).

What a horrible horrible movie. You don't even care what happens in the end because the director never lets you care about the characters.

Wonderful!!
I am not a young person but I just saw this movie on TV and it was wonderful!!!! Would buy the video in a minute...it's was great.

wildly predictable and uninspiring teen fluff
If beautiful people and horrible writing move you, by all means purchase this movie now and cry like there's no tomorrow. This is an instant classic from the profitable teen cheese factory and delivers like a charm to those who LOVE teen weepies. (For us others, we'll just suffer in silence, or, as I did, laugh really hard.) The requisite ingredients - love triangle, terminal disease, poor boy/rich boy - push the plot along in the most predictable way imaginable. Sam (Lelee Sobieski) and Jasper (Josh Hartnett) are happy in love, a superstar couple in their small town until Kelley (Chris Klein), the wealthy, out-of-town snot, comes crashing into the diner owned by Sam's parents. As a punishment, he must rebuild the diner but with the help of our buddy Jasper, who also had a hand in the crash. Before long, Sam eyes that hunky Kelley because, hey, who wouldn't fall for a mysterious rich kid? While the two boys wage their testosterone war, Sam discovers she has cancer. Uh-oh!

This movie is a big disappointment because it fails to capitalize on a relatively talented cast and a pseudo-inspiring story. Rather than developing characters instead of caricatures, the filmmakers opted for the easy, fast cash route. As a result, the dialogue seems to be spun from a 13 year old's soap opera fantasy, befitting of the target audience I suppose. Nothing innovative or inspiring comes about, leaving the audience with zero originality to warm to; this total lack of emotional investment keeps the movie distant and empty. You could say it offers ever-important life lessons to the female jr. high crowd. They undoubtedly appreciate the fine merits of this film that those in the general population seem to have missed ... Read more

Reviews (30)

Excellent, underwatched show with smart writing, great cast
"Veronica Mars" is a lot smarter than your average show featuring attractive teenage characters. To use the term "teen drama" is misleading, as the story is darker, subtler and more sophisticated than other shows like "The O.C." and "Dawson's Creek." It's a modern twist on the noir genre placed in high school, centering around 17-year-old Veronica, once popular but now a social outcast after a chain of events following the murder of her best friend, Lilly Kane.

In every episode, Veronica, a P.I.'s daughter, solves a smaller mystery, while also assembling clues and delving further into the bigger mystery of Lilly's case. The brilliance of the show is in tying the small cases into the larger, overarching themes surrounding the larger mystery. While there are a few episodes that feel more stand-alone, as is the case in all TV drama series, the writers do an excellent job in avoiding letting them become mere filler, throwaway cases -- instead, they use them to feed us more information to further Lilly's case. (As a result, it's hard to skip any episodes without missing some crucial bit of information about the main msytery.)

It's amazing how carefully drawn the entire season is, with clues placed in a meticulously careful, controlled manner, all amping up to an intense crescendo in the last four or five episodes. As the season draws to a close, the intricately laid details click into place as Veronica solves the two biggest cases -- the mystery of her rape (which occurred shortly following Lilly's death and her subsequent ejection from the "cool" crowd) in the penultimate episode (a wonderfully complex, dark and emotional episode), then Lilly's murder in the season finale.

Despite the darkness of the series, there are notable lighter moments too, and the show has quite a bit of humor thrown into the mix. The writing is witty and smart, and the actors pull off comedy just as capably as they do angst and drama. The cast is excellent, and the actors have noticeable chemistry with one another, but two standouts are Kristen Bell as Veronica and Jason Dohring as Logan Echolls (who has an amazingly complexcharacter arc that is drastic, enthralling and utterly believable). As Veronica's former friend, nemesis, then reluctant ally (and the lines blur frequently), Dohring steals every scene he's in, and when he's with Bell the sparks really fly, whether they're pushing each other's buttons, antagonizing each other or simply bantering.

Man, I love this show. Thank goodness UPN had the guts to renew it for a second season.

Veronica Mars is what is RIGHT with television today
I started watching Veronica Mars mid-season, when One Tree Hill was on hiatus.I could kick myself for not watching this show from the beginning.I stopped watching One Tree Hill and the O.C. because the shows have little substance to them and the characters are bland.Veronica Mars's characters are multidimensial.Nobody is completely perfect or innocent, and the guilty usually have redeeming qualities.Veronica's cases usually have a twist in them, like you end up feeling sorry for the bad guy who gets caught.I was a big fan of Desperate Housewives and still watch it, but I think Veronica Mars's mysteries are done better.VM is the best show of 2004 and is still the only show I'm looking forward to in the fall of 2005.It is a smart show and way better than mindless reality shows or dumb shows on the major networks.Do yourself a favor, and "get a clue."Give this show a chance.You won't regret it.

Top-notch:Veronica Mars *is* smarter than me.
Veronica Mars is a brilliantly written, tightly paced show with dark, intricate storytelling and lots of humor. It gets a lot of comparisons to Buffy because its lead character is a tiny blonde teen who takes no prisoners and is always quick with a clever comeback, but in many ways VM is a more complex and intriguing show, and there are almost no "fight scenes" and no fantasy elements. Unlike Buffy, Veronica has no superpowers and knows she can't "kick butt" when she is trying to bring down the bad guys. She has only her intelligence and her wits to keep her ahead of the game. Plus, when the going gets rough, she has her trusty dog Backup to scare off the evildoers.

Veronica is frequently described as a "modern day Nancy Drew," but she is also much more than that. Yes, she does work for her private investigator dad tracking down missing persons and solving other mysteries both large and small, and her weapons of choice are modern-day tools like the internet, cell phones, and Lojack. But Veronica is not your typical peppy teenage girl. She is the anti-cheerleader, a very angry girl who is more likely to taunt her classmates with clever insults than to provide any cheer. While she does have her softer side, it's well hidden and she doesn't reveal it very often. She didn't always used to be this way, and the series takes it time exploring, via flashbacks, how Veronica used to be in the past and why she became so angry and isolated from her peers.

If you have wanted to watch the show but have been put off by the "teen" angle, rest assured that there truly is something for everyone here, of any age. The writing is sophisticated and adult. These teens do things like quote Hamlet and make pop-culture references as widely varied as Heathers to Brigadoon, so the dialogue is frequently quippy and never boring. But the humor never takes over the entire show to make it too light, and the tone is pretty dark overall, considering that the underlying mystery driving Veronica for the entire season is finding the person who murdered her best friend Lilly Kane. Add to that some story lines involving rape, incest, and child abuse, and it's clear that this is no comedy. It's also not for children and sometimes tests the bounds of what you might see on network television in terms of the darkness of the subject matter. Drugs, alcohol, and sex are portrayed as a fact of life among teenagers and the show is not moralizing or preachy in any way, although it frequently portrays the sometimes tragic consequences of all of the above.

Kristen Bell is astonishingly good as Veronica, but the entire cast is for the most part pretty first-rate, especially Enrico Colantoni (as her dad Keith Mars) and Jason Dohring (as her arch-nemesis Logan Echolls). If you are a fan of twisty ongoing mysteries like Lost or Twin Peaks, or you enjoy the quippy humor of the Gilmore Girls or the O.C., or even if you like old-fashioned detective stories like Columbo or the Rockford Files, give Veronica Mars a try because it truly combines the best of all of the above. And if you are a guy, Kristen Bell is pretty darn cute, to boot. So there's that, too.

excellent
This is the only thing I was looking forward to see every week on TV. Excellent writing with main story going across all the episodes and sub-stories that get resolved at the end of each episode. Veronica Mars is a 17 years old daughter of a private investigator, a former sheriff. She's helping him with his cases, has her own to solve and she's decided to find out who killed her best friend Lilly Kane. Almost all the answers get answered by the end of the season. Excellent acting from all the actors. I cannot praise highly enough Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars and Jason Dohring as Logan Echolls. Highly recommended!

Veronica Mars is the best show ever
This show is so amazing. if you like a good mystery then this is the show for you. ... Read more